Festival Gare au Gorille

Sideshow isn't sure where the Festival Gare au Gorille gets its name from, since most of its shows are sited in a park not a station, and there's otherwise not much of a monkey theme. On the cover of the brochure a gorilla balances a white sphere on the tip of an isosceles triangle that is in turn balanced on the outstretched finger of a confused, sweating gorilla – perhaps the gorilla is confused as well?

Anyway! Festival Gare au Gorille is primarily a contemporary circus festival (with a sideline in some live music), mostly showing tented work, and venturesome Englanders should note that it's in Pleumeur Bodou on the Côtes d'Armor – easily accessible by ferry. In a small but well-chosen programme, the 2011 festival has Circ'ombelico's claustrophobic two-hander Da / Fort, which crams the audience into the back of a small truck; Qu'après en être revenu by Jean-Baptiste André, one of the artists at the vanguard of the circus-dance movement (c.f. this Stradda); tightwire virtuosos Les Colporteurs who perform their double bill Les Étoiles; and Gandini Juggling, coming into town to destroy yet another set of crockery as they execute their tanzjonglage Pina Bausch homage Smashed!. There's also work by Ronan Tablantec, Baro d'Evel Cirk, Cridacompany, CirkVOST, Le P'tit Cirk, and Philippe Ollivier.

Sideshow is a magazine and website that promotes, records and thinks about contemporary circus.

Sideshow's current major projects include Deconstructing Circus, a series of 30 focused interviews with 30 circus artists and directors, and What is Contemporary Circus?, a five-part entry level introduction to the artform.